Northern Sea Shaken, the Name of the Mysterious Abyss Emperor Spreads

Dragon-Suppressing Pass.

After the Blackwater Dragon Army completely withdrew, the entire fortress city first fell silent, then erupted in earth-shaking cheers.

"They retreated!"

"The Dragon Clan retreated!"

"The Emperor won!"

"Guixu stopped the Blackwater Dragon Palace!"

Countless beings fell to their knees atop the walls, their eyes filled with fervor and tears.

For these weaker clans, today's battle meant far too much.

In the past, they could only flee whenever they saw the Dragon Clan.

When faced with Dragon Clan conscription, they could only bow their heads.

Their clansmen were taken away, their spirit mountains occupied, their water veins seized, and they did not even dare cry too loudly.

But today.

Right outside Dragon-Suppressing Pass.

They had seen three thousand dragon soldiers suppressed by a formation.

They had seen dragon generals exposed for their murderous sins by the Book of Cause and Effect.

They had seen the Realm Guard withstand a Taiyi expert head-on through a combined formation.

And they had seen the lofty Blackwater Dragon King trampled into the seabed by the Emperor's dharma body.

From this day onward, the myriad clans of the Northern Sea would know that the Dragon Clan was not invincible.

Guixu was their true path to survival.

Lan Shuang stood atop the wall, watching the retreating Blackwater Dragon Army, and finally let out a slow breath.

She had been nervous as well.

The Blackwater Dragon King was, after all, a Great Luo Golden Immortal.

If the Emperor's dharma body had lost, Dragon-Suppressing Pass would surely have fallen.

But the Emperor had ultimately not disappointed Guixu.

He had not even revealed his true body.

Lady Mingzhu softly said, "Closed-door cultivation realm."

"Lan Shuang, what do you think the Emperor truly meant by that?"

Lan Shuang fell silent for a moment.

Her gaze turned toward the depths of Guixu.

"The Emperor is telling us that his Dao can no longer be measured by ordinary realms."

"The words 'closed-door cultivation' may sound ordinary, but they are actually the foundation of the Emperor's Dao path."

"Avoiding calamities, severing karma, guarding Guixu, observing heaven and earth."

"If all living beings of the primordial world struggle through calamities, then the Emperor stands outside them as a Calamity Watcher."

Lady Mingzhu's heart trembled slightly.

"A Calamity Watcher?"

Lan Shuang nodded.

"That is why the Emperor continually reminds us not to contend for supremacy, not to proclaim himself emperor, and not to enter the great calamity."

"This is not fear."

"This is clarity born from overlooking the great calamity."

Lady Mingzhu slowly drew a breath.

"So that was it."

Han Jue stood not far away, his ears twitching slightly.

He had heard every word clearly, and his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

"A Calamity Watcher..."

"The Emperor's path truly is unfathomable."

He clenched his spear, passion surging through his heart.

He suddenly felt that his past obsession with competing and fighting had indeed been shallow.

A truly powerful being had no need to proclaim his strength everywhere.

The Emperor merely cultivated in seclusion within Guixu, yet the Dragon Clan had taken the initiative to retreat.

That was true majesty.

Ao Lie coiled outside the outer gate, listening to everyone's discussion with complicated feelings.

Closed-door cultivation realm.

Calamity Watcher.

These words struck him deeply.

As a Dragon Clan crown prince, he had been taught conquest from childhood.

The Dragon Clan was powerful, so it should rule the Four Seas.

It was only natural for weaker clans to submit.

But Guixu had shown him that another order existed.

Here, bloodline did not determine status.

Nor did race determine life and death.

At least before the Book of Cause and Effect, both the Dragon Clan and the Cold Sand Clan had their merits and sins revealed.

It was absurd.

Yet he could not refute it.

Because Guixu had truly stopped the Dragon Clan.

For the first time, he began to think.

Could the Dragon Clan truly remain powerful forever by conscripting all clans like this?

In the distance, Han Jue looked at him.

"Your father has left."

Ao Lie replied flatly, "I saw."

"You're not going back?"

"My sentence is not over."

Han Jue raised a brow.

"You really do follow the rules."

Ao Lie sneered.

"This prince merely honors his wager."

Han Jue smiled.

"Fine, then keep guarding the gate."

Ao Lie's dragon eyes narrowed slightly.

"Han Jue, once this prince regains his freedom, the first thing I'll do is fight you."

Han Jue's eyes lit up.

"I'd be delighted."

The two disliked each other.

Yet the people atop Dragon-Suppressing Pass somehow felt more at ease.

One Dragon Clan prince guarded the outer gate.

One Guixu prodigy guarded the inner gate.

The presence of Dragon-Suppressing Pass seemed even steadier.

In the depths of Guixu.

Lu Chen listened to the cheers outside and finally relaxed.

The Blackwater Dragon King had left.

This trouble had been temporarily suppressed.

The system's voice sounded as well.

"Congratulations to the host for successfully avoiding an escalation of the conflict with the Blackwater Dragon Palace."

"Guixu's Dragon-Suppressing Pass has established its initial renown."

"The Black Tortoise Sea-Calming Formation has stabilized for the second time."

"Reward: fragment of the fourth layer of the Chaos Shell-Shedding Method."

Lu Chen's eyes immediately lit up.

The Chaos Shell-Shedding Method!

And it was a fragment of the fourth layer.

He had already obtained several foundational layers before. With another fragment now, he was one step closer to truly shedding his shell and escaping.

That was what he cared about most.

As for Dragon-Suppressing Pass's reputation, Guixu's prestige, or the uproar among the myriad clans of the Northern Sea, he was not particularly interested.

The greater the reputation, the more trouble it brought.

But the Chaos Shell-Shedding Method was different.

This was the key to preserving his four legs.

Lu Chen immediately sank into his primordial spirit and began comprehending the newly acquired fragment.

Strands of gray Dao patterns circulated deep within his turtle shell.

An incomparably faint boundary seemed to have appeared between his old shell and his true body.

That boundary was faint.

But it truly existed.

Lu Chen was overjoyed.

"Good."

"Keep lying low."

"As long as the Shell-Shedding Method is completed, there will be hope of surviving the future deadly calamity of mending the heavens."

Just as he was about to continue cultivating in seclusion, he suddenly received another message from Lan Shuang.

"Reporting to the Emperor."

"After the Blackwater Dragon King retreated, the various Northern Sea clans were shaken."

"Quite a few small clans have already come to Dragon-Suppressing Pass with congratulatory gifts."

"Also, Ancestor Xuan Jia, chief of the Black-Shelled Turtle Tribe, has brought his entire clan to the pass."

"They say..."

Lan Shuang paused with a strange tone.

Lu Chen suddenly had a bad feeling.

"What did they say?"

Lan Shuang said softly, "They said they wished to meet the ancestor of the turtle clan."

Lu Chen: "..."

He remained silent for a long time.

"Who is their ancestor?"

The news of the Blackwater Dragon King's defeat could not be suppressed in the end.

The deployment of three thousand Blackwater Dragon soldiers had already been impossible to conceal from the various Northern Sea clans.

The battle outside Guixu's Dragon-Suppressing Pass had been outrageously dramatic: black tides blotted out the sky, dragon might swept across the sea, and a Black Tortoise phantom suppressed all directions.

No one knew how many aquatic clans in the Northern Sea had glimpsed the battle's aftermath from afar.

And when the Blackwater Dragon Army returned to the Blackwater Dragon Palace, the three thousand dragon soldiers were dispirited, while the Blackwater Dragon King still bore wounds that had not fully healed.

The various Northern Sea clans immediately understood.

The Blackwater Dragon Palace had lost.

Like an undersea storm, this news swept across the Northern Sea at extraordinary speed.

"The Blackwater Dragon King personally acted, yet still failed to break through Dragon-Suppressing Pass?"

"I heard the Mysterious Abyss Emperor never showed his true body. He suppressed the Blackwater Dragon King with only a single dharma body."

"More than that! After three thousand Blackwater Dragon soldiers entered the formation, large numbers of dragons fell to their knees on the spot."

"The Book of Cause and Effect atop Dragon-Suppressing Pass is terrifying too. It can reveal the Dragon Clan's murderous sins."

"Can Guixu truly protect weaker clans now?"

"The Cold Sand Clan, Mystic Clam Tribe, Ice-Scaled Tribe, and Cold Whale Tribe have all joined Guixu."

"Even Ao Lie, the third prince of the Blackwater Dragon Palace, was punished and made to guard Dragon-Suppressing Pass."

"A Dragon Clan prince guarding a gate? That's too absurd."

"So what if it is? Even the Blackwater Dragon King himself went there and still failed to bring him back."